ADMINISTRATIVE COURT OF THE STATE OF RIDGEWAY
CITATION: AlexNeptunes v. State Police,
RSC-AD-1048
DATE OF JUDGEMENT:
2023-06-29
BETWEEN:
AlexNeptunes
Applicant
and
Ridgeway State Police
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGEMENT
OF THE
HONOURABLE JUDGE KOALA4IIFE
I. Type of Action
[1] Applicant AlexNeptunes filed an application to under s. 1.4(c)(ii) of the
Administrative Procedure Act (the “Act”) to review an administrative demerit, as
defined by s. 1.4(a) of the Act, that was issued to him by the respondent, the Ridgeway
State Police.
[2] The applicant sought remedy to declare the action “arbitrary” within the
meaning of s. 1.8(a)(ii) and (v) of the Act and to have the action set aside under s. 3.3(a)
of the Act.
II. Factual Basis
[3] Most facts set out in this part were largely agreed upon by both parties. In the
case of conflicting facts, I have made findings on my own not dissimilar to how
conflicting facts are resolved in habeas corpus applications, absent of procedures or
directions from the Supreme Court under s. 3.4(b)(iv) of the Act. In any case, I am
satisfied prima facie the provisions of s. 3.4(b)(i) of the Act do not necessarily bar the
claim. Otherwise, neither party raised concerns relating to said provisions.
[4] On 1 May 2023, Colonel Mattcern of the Ridgeway State Police issued an
announcement to State Police employees that quotas would be “reinstated”, but in
reality, the reinstatement also brought changes to the existing rules on quotas.
[5] Activity “quotas” are regulated by policy 707-2 in the Ridgeway State Police
Department Policy Guide, stating that:
“An employee shall be required to log a total of three (3) patrols per week, each
patrol shall be of twenty (20) minutes or longer. An employee may not submit
more than two (2) patrol logs per day.”
[6] The announcement on 1 May 2023 reinstated, and also brought changes to
policy 707-2. Under the new instructions, State Police employees were required to
complete at least two logs of at least 15 minutes on two different days every cycle.
[7] The announcement itself contained no information about when the cycles
themselves started and ended, but it did not disturb the existing timeframe for these
cycles, nor would anything in the announcement lead one to believe that it did. The
Department Policy Guide does not contain any information about when the cycle starts
and ends. In an attachment to said announcement, it stated that: “Valid submission
period for patrol logs is from 12:01AM ET on Sunday through 11:59PM ET on
Saturday.” In any case, both parties seem to agree that cycles are one week long,
beginning at the start of Sundays and ending at the end of Saturdays.
[8] In sum, at all relevant times, the applicant had to submit two 15-minute logs on
two different calendar days between 00:01 Sunday and 23:59 Saturday, Eastern Time,
the following week.
[9] The announcement on Monday 1 May 2023 was made when the cycle for that
week had already begun. It is presumed that, as the announcement was a
“reinstatement” or “bringing back” of quotas, before that announcement, quotas
prescribed by policy 707-2 were not in force.
[10] It would appear that by Wednesday 3 May 2023 at the latest, applicant had
received the message, a 2 business days receipt time.
[11] Applicant submitted five logs on 6 May 2023 and none on other days.
[12] Applicant received a recorded warning on 7 May 2023, by reason that all of his
logs were submitted on the same calendar day.
[13] Applicant sought to excuse missing the quota after the warning was issued,
citing schoolwork and improper notice, among other reasons, which he attributed to
him forgetting about the new quotas.
III. On the Merits
[14] An administrative demerit in question is reviewed under s. 1.4(c)(ii) of the Act
for being allegedly “plainly and clearly arbitrary”.
[15] “Arbitrary” punishment is defined in part by s. 1.8(a)(v) of the Act as
“punishment that takes no accounting of mitigating factors, circumstances, or
liabilities” and by s. 1.8(a)(ii) of the Act as “punishment whose policy, law, or
regulation prescribing it is ambiguous, or unclear, or a violation of a constitutional right
or privilege or statutory enactment”.
[16] First, the applicant submits that the policy change announcement was unclear
in that it did not state the beginning and end of the cycle. He further submits that “a
reasonable person may interpret that the cycle began on Monday, May 1st and ended
on Sunday, May 7th". This is a fair point, if the announcement had not otherwise stated
the cycle’s start and end dates. But the announcement contained an attachment with
further instructions that the “valid submission period for patrol logs is from 12:01AM
ET on Sunday through 11:59PM ET on Saturday.”
[17] A reasonable person would have deduced that the correct submission period
must be the one so provided in the attachment, and not one starting from the date of the
announcement and ending one week later. This is particularly the case given that
nowhere else—either in another announcement or the Department Policy Guide—was
there conflicting information to base the applicant’s calculations from.
[18] I have no reason to believe that the policy was unclear,
[19] Second, the applicant submits that the administrative demerit did not account
for his mitigating circumstances. He pleaded that the mitigating circumstances were
inactivity in Ridgeway and the discontinuation of activity quotas. In particular, he finds
the “sudden shift from no logs to logs with specific requirements without any
forewarning simply because the game suddenly became more active takes no account
for plaintiffs mitigating circumstances”.
[20] Evidently, the applicant feels that submitting “no logs” is the norm whereas
submitting “logs with specific requirements” is something extraordinary that merits the
consideration of mitigating circumstances. This is not the case. At no point—before,
during, or after—inactivity in Ridgeway was the applicant entitled to submit “no logs”
while employed by the State Police. The State Police, or at times, the Governor, waived
quota requirements as they saw fit under no requirements by law to do so. It is unclear
how or why the applicant feels that the State Police was under any obligation to take
into account any of the applicant’s particular scholastic or extracurricular
circumstances or liabilities before reinstating quotas, as they had not been obligated
under law to waive quotas in the first place.
[21] Instead, it was problematic that the State Police decided to reinstate quotas for
the week after that week’s cycle had already begun and thus gave its employees less
time than they would have during a normal cycle to fulfil said quota. It is more
problematic that the change happened at such a time that it took off one weekend day
for the applicant to submit a log.
[22] Compounding the problem is the enforcement mechanism. These changes
would have probably been less problematic had the enforcement of those changes not
been by means of a recorded warning. The enforcement mechanism, along with the
announcement’s tone and timing, suggest a cavalier and reckless approach by the State
Police when reinstating logs, which was wholly inappropriate in the circumstances.
[23] It is not a stretch to presume punishment issued for violations of eleventh-hour
policy changes such as the one concerned in this case to be arbitrary by default. Surprise
policies are inherently unfair not to the applicant in any particular way but instead to
everyone affected by it—and in this case, every employee of the State Police. Hence,
even though the State Police was not required to take into account the applicant’s
personal mitigating circumstances, it was nonetheless still required to give adequate
notice as a matter of fairness to all of its employees, including the applicant.
[24] The State Police failed to give adequate notice to its employees about a policy
change, making said policy change presumably arbitrary.
[25] In my view, in light of the circumstances, appropriate and non-arbitrary notice
would mean setting the effective date for reinstating quotas as the start of next week’s
cycle; and appropriate and considerate punishment would have been a reminder. The
State Police having failed to do either, subjected the applicant to an arbitrary policy.
[26] Respondent submits that the punishment was not arbitrary because the
mitigating circumstances pleaded by the applicant can be mitigated through existing
avenues in the State Police’s leave of absence procedures. I agree that leaves of absence
are an appropriate means to account for all mitigating circumstances with respect to
activity quotas the applicant was concerned about. Although having presumed the
punishment to be arbitrary, it can be saved by showing that mitigating circumstances
were in fact considered.
[27] Respondent claims that a leave of absence submitted before Thursday 4 May
2023 would have excused the applicant from that week’s quota. Whether or not this is
true is irrelevant. Moreover, by failing to request a leave of absence at all or otherwise
using any existing mechanisms or avenues at any point before the applicant was issued
an administrative demerit to make his mitigating circumstances known and request to
be accommodated, the applicant forfeit his right to a claim under s. 1.8(a)(v) of the Act.
IV. Judgement
[28] The administrative demerit issued to applicant AlexNeptunes by respondent the
State Police on 7 May 2023 is sustained.
Dated at the City of Palmer, in the State of Ridgeway on June 29, 2023.
“koala4Iife”
Judge koala4Iife
Counsel for the applicant AlexNeptunes: gbuttisnotmyname, Ridgeway.
Counsel for the respondent Ridgeway State Police: totoro987123, Ridgeway.
